


Cross the Stars

by sihtos



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, In a way, Romance, Suggestive, Suggestive Themes, We, but rhea isn’t at gerreg mach, byleth is a bit doubtful, claude is absolutely smitten with byleth, hehe, i love these two, its the night before their march to Shambhala, mentions of jeralt, my attempts of poetic waxing, shes showin emotion, slight gd route spoilers, sorta - Freeform, we love it when she’s open
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 10:54:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21098306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sihtos/pseuds/sihtos
Summary: On the eve of battle, Claude and Byleth find themselves restless, talking on the Star Terrace. Tomorrow could be their last day, so they live tonight as though it were their last.





	Cross the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> hi hellooooo! this is my very first contribution to the fe3h fandom and I'm both super nervous and excited for it, please feel free to let me know what y'all think!!! I'm such a sucker for this pair, they're my favorite couple from this game.

“They call me the Fell Star, you know.”

Byleth finds purchase along the railing of the Star Terrace, voice small as she looks to last moments of dusk. The sun is already setting beyond the line of the horizon, the sky more blue than it is pink, still touched by the slightest hints of red and orange. It looks as though somebody has traced their fingertips across the canvas with the gentlest of touches in the last exhale of the day before succumbing to sleep. 

The sky is alive with the idea of stars. 

Beside her, Claude is uncharacteristically quiet. He stares at the darkening scene overhead, unblinking, at loss for words. If he looks at her, he’ll fall apart. 

“It’s funny,” Byleth continues, and the mirth in her tone is enough to make Claude glance at her, curious, “because falling stars mean good luck; they’re supposedly even _wished_ upon.”

Claude chuckles at the way her eyes widen incredulously at the notion. He finds her endearing like this, when she thinks out loud and confides her thoughts in him, even the simple ones. She had missed out on so much growing up. Forget feeling weak in the knee because of the misunderstood, blue undertone of her words. Claude needed to be strong for her. 

Here is the truth: she has roots while he has wings. 

“Shooting stars also means endings,” he adds in implication, turning around so that his back could lean against the stone rail. His arms are crossed over his chest instead of locked behind his head, for once. 

Byleth pauses, emerald eyes dark and downcast. “That’s just the thing…” she sounds quiet again. Doubtful. “What if I am leading all of you to your demise?”

Claude watches how her knuckles whiten in thought, and feels his whole body stiffen. Then he shakes his head, not having any of it. “No, my friend, I think you’re looking at it all wrong.” 

She looks intrigued, taken aback by his words. Byleth is staring at him now and Claude forgets his place for a moment. There are question marks taking shape in her irises, and really bends him to his will and out of his mind, and he would have smiled if not for the tense atmosphere. She’s just so pretty. 

“E-Ending, as in, you are going to be the one to bring Nemesis to his end once and for all,” he stumbles over his words and a hand slides around the back of his neck to calm his irrational nerves. So much for maintaining the calm, cool, and collected demeanor of being the leader of the Alliance. Still, he needed to remain strong. 

(Though, there was nothing irrational about his nerves. Claude knew full well his wings wouldn’t be able to carry the weight of the war anymore. He had other, bigger things he wanted to hold on to now.)

The colors of sunset left the sky to paint her cheeks in a blush, and Byleth could feel the intense shades warm over her face. It wasn’t even the heat from the dying sun which had her feeling warm inside—it was the confidence Claude placed in his words, in her. There is this unfamiliar emotion which causes her chest to clench for reasons she can’t pinpoint. 

Inside, her heart swells. 

“And besides,” Claude goes on, this time dropping his arms weakly at his sides as he looks her in the eye. “If falling stars means they can grant you a wish, then you’ve most certainly making mine come true, so far.” 

Byleth blushes deeply at the sentiment. “I think you’re giving me too much credit. I can only do so much. Your dreams are much bigger than I am.”

He shakes his head again. “No, By. Not at all.” 

She gives him an incredulous look and parts her lips in protest but then is silenced under his touch. His hand cups her face in a gentle caress, the rough pad of his thumb brushing softly over her cheek, as if he was painting her pink. They stay that way, briefly, taking the time to close some distance between them.

Then he begins to explain. 

“I used to think my dreams were the biggest thing of my existence. My dreams were all I pined after, all I thought I had, the only thing that kept me going day in and day out. Because running was all I could do growing up, I decided my dreams were the one thing I should chase after. That maybe it was the safest thing for me,” Claude’s grip on her tightens by the smallest of fractions and his eyes bore into hers, “but then I met you.”

A gasp escapes from Byleth. “I don’t—I don’t understand,” she stammers bashfully. The moon is beginning to rise.

“It’s okay, Teach, let me explain,” Claude says gently, understandingly. His other hand reaches out to hold her waist as the first star winks to life overhead. “I don’t believe in gods, I never have. I always looked to the stars to guide me through life because they’re always there to listen and watch over us. More than anything, I think I place my faith in them so much because I’m someone who has to see in order to believe.”

Byleth simply nods, focusing on him and him alone, and Claude pauses to search her face for any sort of reaction. There is none other than patience and interest. Well, it was now or never.

“So I would look to them to make my dreams come true. And while the stars led me to Fódlan and becoming House Reigan’s heir and enrolling at Gerreg Mach, I don’t think nothing could have prepared me for this—for meeting you.” He smiles fondly at her. “You’re some miracle of a person, you know that? I mean, it’s too much of a coincidence for the enemy to call you the Fell Star when you fell right into my hands and not theirs. I would say that you are making my dreams come to fruition, but I know I’d be lying to myself if I did. You are my dream now, Byleth. And I love you.” 

Even though her heart doesn’t beat, she can feel it lurched in her throat as she tries to speak. “Yo-You love me?”

The words continue and her heart swells with them.

“I’m in love with you,” Claude confesses as both of his hands come to frame her face. “I’ve been in love with you after all this time. I always have, I think ever since I first saw you hold the Sword of the Creator.”

“Why?” she demands, near desperate. There are tears in the corners of her eyes that threaten to fall, much in the same way she is falling for him.

“Because you are strong, stronger than anybody I’ve ever known. You are so sure of yourself. I admire your strength; it makes up more of you than anything else. People are drawn to you like they are the Blue-Sea Star, and I know I don’t believe in gods, but I find myself following your lead almost religiously. Byleth, you are a _goddess_. You give me something to believe in.”

He talks to her so fragile, so tenderly, so differently from the way he describes her, but it’s precious and enough cause to make Byleth break. Her body is here, looking at him through clouded eyes, but her mind is somewhere else, and that causes the words to cram in her throat. Byleth is about to _burst_. She just doesn’t understand.

“I even cut off my braid for you,” Claude laments, “Nadar was upset at me for having faith in someone who disappeared for five years, someone who thought was dead, but I couldn’t give up on you. I wouldn’t give up on you unless the stars stopped shining. I love you too much for that.”

(In Almyran tradition, the braid is near sacred. A meaningful symbol of personal strength and lifelong growth. That was his vow to her.)

“H-How can you love someone who doesn’t even have a heart?” she grabs one of his hands and places it over her still chest, as if trying to convince him that no one could possibly come to love her, the Ashen Demon. “My heart…it doesn’t beat.”

But Claude simply shakes his head and chuckles. “As if that could change anything.”

“I can’t—”

“It’s okay,” he cuts her off, “because you have mine.”

It’s his turn to grab her hand and place it over his chest, but he doesn’t let go of hers when he does. Instead, he keeps it in his own because this was the other, bigger, _better_ thing for Claude to hold on to: her hand. 

Byleth feels her heart grow bigger and bigger until it can barely fit within her ribcage. So swollen with emotion, she almost thinks that the Crest of Flames cracks. She hasn’t felt this overwhelmed since her father’s death. 

And for the second time in her life, Byleth finds herself crying. 

She holds onto Claude weakly, desperately, trying to wrap her around mind around this thing called love. The feeling takes root in her heart, blooms in her chest like a rose. No one said love _hurt_ like this, or maybe that was just her being too inundated. 

Claude presses their foreheads together out of hurt and comfort. Her pain was also his to bear. Every time she was cut, he bled. However, Byleth wasn’t hurting at all. 

In fact, these tears were out of sheer _joy_. 

She stifles a sob that comes out as sort of a laugh, and even if she was a mess, she still looks so damn beautiful to Claude like this. The moon rises behind them, illuminating her skin, outlines her radiant being with silver lining. The stars, too, come out from hiding in the quiet moment, before Byleth opens her eyes which practically glow in the dark. 

Then, she whispers, “Where have you been all my life?” and his kiss burns against her lips like a fallen star gleaming through the darkness. 

It is a delicate thing at first, the kiss. They get the angle all wrong, noses knocking awkwardly against each other while their hands and lips try to find their rightful places. Their eyes are closed, so they hesitantly reach out and cling to one another as if they’re searching through the dark. Call it faith.

(Byleth is seeing stars. She thinks that if she looks closely enough, she can see them glint in more color than one.)

Then Claude decides to take things a step further by lifting her up in his arms, cradling her as though they’d just gotten married. Truth was, Claude does plan on proposing to her after the war ends. The emerald ring sits pretty in his pocket, waiting for the him to get down on one knee. He thinks he just might do it tonight.

But he leads them down the moonlit hallway instead, towards the empty archbishop’s bedroom in the back. Impatience to kiss her and to worship her and to _marry_ her gnaw at his head, and it takes all the strength and gentleness in him not to throw Byleth on the bed. Gods, he’d marry her today and every day. 

He’s so in love. 

When they reach the room, he sets her down against the corner of the mattress while he sits along the edge. Byleth dips back into the bed and pulls Claude with her, his hands taking root beside her thighs. She brings her hands to cup his face and wastes no time in leaning forward to meet his inviting lips. 

They explore each other’s mouths and bodies like their uncovering a map. But someone must’ve been holding a candle at the corners because they find themselves burning between the seams. This feeling, this compelling but earth-shattering, flaring feeling closes in on them. Crawls up their backs, singes their skin, curls around their bones. 

His beard is a bit rough and scratchy under her touch, and it makes her giggle into the kiss. Claude’s heart soars at the sound, and he doesn’t think anything else can be more precious. One of his hands then plants itself somewhere on the small of her back while the other encloses around one of her own. By doing this, they come a little closer.

Underneath the moonlight, kisses are stolen. Touches are fleeting. One heart beats for two. Who says home is where the heart is when homes are so much easier to build with four hands? Byleth and Claude are just taking back what should’ve been theirs all along. They have been something for everyone—a teacher and a friend and a schemer and a tactician and a comrade in arms—everything but each other’s. 

So they speak with their hands. Every time Claude squeezes her hand, it’s his silent plea for more. And each time Byleth scratches at his jaw, she wordlessly begs him to not stop. But in the end, they’re only human. They need air to breathe, and so they do just that, taking the time to stop and separate. 

Tonight, time was all they had. And they had all the time in the world.

Byleth opens her eyes to find Claude already looking at her through a half-lidded gaze. A single, loose strand of hair dangles over his right eye teasingly, won’t stay put when she cards it back into his messy, russet tousles. In the blueness of the room, she smiles.

If Claude hadn’t been so breathless, he would’ve smiled back. He would’ve claimed her lips in another starry kiss. He would’ve taken her mind, body and soul for himself, made it one with his own. 

But this deep shade of blue stirs something within him, has him asking a question instead of loving. 

“By,” Claude shatters the sweet silence with a crack in his voice. “Why didn’t you choose me and mine to lead all those years ago?” Deep down, he knows now is not the time for such things. What should matter more than anything is that she is in in his arms now and not _his_.

(Still, he’d rather live with the answer than die with the question. Tomorrow could be his last day on earth, after all.)

“You’re asking why I chose to lead the Blue Lions over the Golden Deer?” she asks for clarification, and Claude motions his head in weak affirmation. 

Byleth wonders what triggered this. She scrutinizes his face for any trace of emotion but finds none. His features are hard and stoic and it reminds her of the first time she met him, how his smile never reached his eyes. She can’t read him when he puts his walls up like this, hates feeling like what they built up might come crumbling down. He is a deer with horns now.

But she knows he won’t be able to breathe unless this gets off his chest, and hers. 

(Blue is the color of sadness. How fitting that the room is tinged in it.)

“Because Dimitri needed me,” she says quietly, confidently. “If you believe I am a star, then I must have a purpose. He was lost to the darkness while you basked in the light.” Byleth brushes his hair back again and whispers, almost in awe. “You never left the light.”

Claude remains quiet for a moment, but ultimately softens beneath her words. 

“And besides, I needed to know if I could trust you the same you kept guarded around me. I don’t even think you liked me back then.” Her throat wavers at the thought.

“Fair enough,” he finally responds, seemingly satisfied.

There is a weight that lifts off his shoulders he didn’t even realize was there, didn’t even realize the turmoil he put her through all those years ago. The decision she made in the past was more than fair; she had her reasons as did he. How ironic it is, though, that they become each other’s most trust ally, and so much more. 

Byleth finds herself in the same position while she stares intently at him. Despite the minor hiccup, she wants to crawl into his arms and stay there. Forget the war and the rest of the world. At this point, she’s never gonna leave this bed. 

Claude doesn’t want to be anywhere else. He would shatter the stars, slice through Fódlan’s Throat, destroy the Immaculate One, all just to escape time with her. Her hair is mussed and mangled in his hands, and Claude believes she is the epitome of beauty. 

Poking her cheek, he jests, “And you say you have no heart.”

Byleth rolls her eyes and lightly pushes him to the side. “Oh, give me a break.”

“Never, my dear,” Claude smirks at his own cheekiness and Byleth can’t contain her fits of laughter. If happiness was light, she’d be glowing from the inside.

“Was that a pun I just heard?” she accuses him in jest before her bright-green eyes descend down on his lips in desire. 

“Take it how you want to,” he grins mischievously, leans forward teasingly. He loosens his collar for added effect, and Byleth gasps under her breath, “but you love me anyway. I’m speaking it into existence.”

“Putting words in my mouth now?” she stops halfway to giggle, placing her hands on his shoulders for purchase. 

“I know you do.” Claude exudes of confidence when he says it. 

“Yes, I do,” Byleth agrees with a nod. 

Hooking one of his hands under her knee, Claude pulls Byleth into his lap. He keeps his hand under her leg while he wraps the other around his waist, wanting to hold her as close and intimate as possible. It’s his greatest scheme yet. His shirt hikes up his back as Byleth digs her nails into the fabric along his shoulder, bundling it up in her palms, wanting it off. 

She practically sighs when he dips his nose beneath her chin, his hot breath tickling her skin when he groans, “Say it.”

“I love you,” Byleth murmurs to the ceiling, almost afraid that if she speaks too loudly, the moment might split in two. 

“Say it again,” Claude growls, and this time, Byleth leans over to touch noses with him. 

Time stills in that moment. Here they are, Claude and Byleth, tangled in one another not as former teacher and student, not as leader and general, not as soldier and weapon, but as man and woman. The sensation is raw and real and bares the naked truth. If only they could catch this moment and put it in a jar, dip it in resin like a rose.

Emerald meets verdant. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he says breathlessly. “I love you, I love you, I love you, I’m _in love_ with you.”

And then he draws her back in for another kiss. 

Later that night, when they lay under the covers, Byleth opens the windows so they can stargaze. Although they should be resting, the couple finds themselves talking about pipeline dreams and take walks down memory lane. They reminisce on the old days and have high hopes for the coming future. Neither of them bring up tomorrow, but it hangs over them like a rain cloud ready to unleash its storm.

Sometime during his childhood ment, Byleth falls asleep. She sleeps flush against Claude’s chest, her ear pressed against the lull of his heartbeat. It was sound and steady and strong enough to beat for the two of them. 

Outside, the sun is already rising. Claude hasn’t drawn the curtains closed yet, so it drowns the room in a spill of hesitantly golden light. Between the tips of his fingers, he holds the jaded engagement ring, and it catches the light.

The world is at that stage between night and day, when everything is quiet. The chirping of the first birds is the only sound made, but even they seem hesitant, as if they might start a war. It feels like he and Byleth are the only people in the world, the only ones that matter, the only ones that exist. 

This is the reason Claude will be fighting later today—to be able to wake up to her at dawn like this and much, much more. Because he wants her by his side today and tomorrow and the next day and the day after that and forever and ever. 

That is his dream.


End file.
